This article touches on a theme that is a recurrent one with me. Undoubtedly, there is a widening gap between the performance of boys and girls in schools especially over time. By the time High School, the gap is widest. I don't this issue is as simplistic as blaming the schools for punishing boys for being boys. I think that may be a factor but not the deciding one. Herewith is my list of things that I think are contributing factors:

1. Dramatic increase in the number of fatherless households
2. Dramatic decrease in the number of male teachers
3. Teaching digital age kids with 18th century technolgy, tools and methods
4. Punishing boys for being boys
5. Coeducational classrooms
6. Keeping kids in school until they graduate from high school
7. Social promotion
8. The demise of vocational schools
9. Popular culture presenting thugs and gangsters as the model of manliness
10. Parent involvement in schools and child's education.

I'm sure there are more but those are a good start. Each of those items alone would be a negative in the classroom. Combine them and you have real problems. Points 1, 9, 10 are totally outside the control of the teachers and/or schools. There is nothing they can do to force these things to change. The rest of them, can be addressed and need to be, soon.

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